Recently in Interesting! Category
=rand(99,200) is an interesting command. If you type this in Word 2003 and press Enter, you get 233 pages (99 paragraphs with 200 sentences per paragraph) of "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." !!!
More info:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_quick_brown_fox_jumps_over_the_lazy_dog
- http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070905095230AAB3Bks
- Sample output MS Word file
I came across an ad today which mentioned that Macedonia is the first country in the world to have country-wide Wi-Fi network coverage. I was amazed and I searched a bit and found out that this is indeed the case. The coverage was possible due to a project called "Macedonia Connects" which was funded by the USAID.
Macedonia has a total area of 25,333 square kilometers - similar to the size of my home state Manipur i.e. roughly 0.8% of the size of India or 0.3% of the size of the U.S.
Image Courtesy: David Liuzzo/Wikipedia
Sometime back, I remembered reading something about Philadelphia going to be the first Wi-Fi enabled city in the U.S. But I am not sure if the project has been fully implemented yet. Currently, Corpus Christi, TX seems to be the only U.S. city which has full Wi-Fi access. Please correct me if I am wrong. Also, c|net has a list of municipal broadband network projects in the US.
Related Links:
- Official Macedonian Govt. website
- Wi-Fi Planet article (12/22/2006)
- Financial Times article (3/28/2006)
- BBC article (11/11/2005)
- Macedonia - Wikipedia
I first came across these in a Chinese store in Chicago China town a couple of weeks back. And I was awe-struck. It seems that the bird nests of a certain type of swift bird are used as a delicacy in Chinese cuisine. These nests are made from the bird's saliva and in addition to being a delicacy, they have medicinal properties also.
Image Courtesy: Wikipedia
These nests are extremely expensive - mostly due to the lengthy and hard process of getting the nests from unreachable rock crevices and also for cleaning them. The ones I saw in the Chinese store ranged from $800 to $1,500 per box (You can see the $888.99 price on the orange star shaped paper on the right of the box in the image below. Click the image to enlarge it). And these can go upto $10,000!
I have not tasted the bird nests soup yet, but if I do, I will surely update this post :).
Wonderworks. Pigeon Forge, TN. Look at the picture carefully ;). Isn't there something wrong with the house? :)
Visit the website: http://www.wonderworkstn.com/
Was reading an article on CNN that the USS Nashville was in Beirut, Lebanon to evacuate the stranded US citizens.
Could not help but notice the coincidence.
For those who are unaware, there is also a place called Lebanon (wikipedia | map) near Nashville, Tennessee. Hence the title of this entry: "Nashville in Lebanon and Lebanon near Nashville" :). Nashville is the capital of Tennessee is considered the home of country music.
Trivia:
- Dell Inc. has a desktop manufacturing facility (EG1) at East Gate, Lebanon, TN.
- Just learnt that the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain originated in Lebanon, TN! I love Cracker Barrel :).
- Lebanon, TN is pronounced "LEB-nun", as opposed to the "LEB-uh-non". That reminds me of my conversation with my friend Jenny that Antioch, TN is pronounced "Ani-ock" :)
I was discussing this with my friends previously but they did not believe it. Then I came across this article today. It is an NY Times editorial which talks about how McDonald's is starting to implement long-distance call centers for taking orders from drive-thru customers! Some 50 McDonald's franchises are reportedly testing this remote order-taking technology. So, when you are sitting in your car and giving that order for your McChicken, the person you are talking to might actually be sitting in California instead of good ol' Knoxville! Think about that.
NY Times (4/13/2006): Fries With That?
NY Times (4/11/2006): The Long-Distance Journey of a Fast-Food Order
Fries With That?
NY Times Editorial. April 13, 2006Sometimes it's all too easy to lose perspective in the modern world. On Tuesday, The Times reported that McDonald's has begun experimenting with a new way of routing menu orders at the drive-through window. The voice you hear at the squawk box comes not from an employee inside the restaurant but from a call center hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away. The order is then relayed to the front of the very restaurant where you are bodily present and filled as usual. A man who wants a Big N' Tasty in Wyoming and a woman who wants an Egg McMuffin in Honolulu may be placing their orders with the same teenager in California. Several customers, told of the fact, seemed taken aback.
And yet where is the surprise? There you sit, perhaps miles from home, idling in a car that was manufactured almost anywhere, burning gasoline refined from a substance pumped out of the ground who knows where and shipped, in all likelihood, across the ocean to be trucked to the station where you last filled up. Meanwhile you're talking to your best friend on your cellphone — and who knows how that works or where those signals go? — or listening to satellite radio beamed down from space. Yet what's really on your mind is the food they're getting together for you inside that McDonald's, made from cattle that once lived anywhere and potatoes that grew someplace else, all of it relayed from some way station in the McDonald's supply chain.
Yes, a long-distance call center for a drive-through window is something to marvel at. The real wonder is that the call center isn't in Bangalore.
This time-date sequence (01:02:03 04/05/06) will only occur once (for each date format) during this millenium. The next one will be in the year 3006!
American Date Format
April 5 2006. 01:02:03 AM
01:02:03 04/05/06
British Date Format
May 4 2006. 01:02:03 AM
01:02:03 04/05/06
Via: email forwards from friends
I came across this post on Dr. Karuturi's website and I realized that I had never thought about it. Domain names can be a maximum of 63 characters long without the top level extension i.e. .com, .org. co.uk etc.
So, the longest domain names in the world (for .com names) are:
[1] http://www.thelongestdomainnameintheworldandthensomeandthensomemoreandmore.com/ (67 characters = 63 characters + 4 characters for .com)
Note: Read it as "www dot the longest domain name in the world and then some and then some more and more dot com."
[2] http://www.iamtheproudownerofthelongestlongestlongestdomainnameinthisworld.com/ (67 characters = 63 characters + 4 characters for .com)
Note: Dr. Karuturi's new domain name. Read it as "www dot I am the proud owner of the longest longest longest domain name in this world dot com."
[3] http://3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592.com/ (67 characters = 63 characters + 4 characters for .com)
Note: The name is the first 65 characters of the value of Pi to one million decimal places.
[4] http://www.abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.com/ (67 characters = 63 characters + 4 characters for .com)
Note: The site also offers free email. Of course, I did not sign up! :)
There can be many more which are this long. I will add them to this list as I find them.
Also, the longest single word domain name in the world is http://www.llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.co.uk/ (64 characters = 58 characters + 6 characters for .co.uk)
It is the name of an actual village on the island of Anglesey in Wales, UK and the name itself is a Welsh word which translates as "St Mary's Church in the Hollow of the White Hazel near a Rapid Whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the Red Cave." For day-to-day purposes, the name is abbreviated to Llanfair PG or Llanfairpwll :).
Tetaumatawhakatangihangakoauaotamateaurehaeaturipukapihimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuaakitanarahu is the name of a village in New Zealand. And at 92 characters, it is the longest placename in the World (according to the Guinness Book of World Records).
Krungthepmahanakornamornratanakosinmahintarayutthayamahadilokphop
nopparatrajathaniburiromudomrajaniwesmahasatharn
amornphimarnavatarnsathitsakkattiyavisanukamprasit
is the name of a village in Thailand and is 163 characters long. However it is not included in the Guinness book. (p.s. The word is so long that it was messing up the layout of my page. So, I broke it into 3 lines :). )
And of course, Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis is the longest English word (45 characters) and is defined as "a lung disease caused by the inhalation of very fine silica dust, mostly found in volcanos". It is also known as "p45" and is the longest word ever to appear in a non-technical dictionary of English (Oxford English Dictionary). The actual name of the disease is pneumoconiosis.
ROME, Italy (Reuters) -- Dog owners in Turin will be fined up to $650 if they don't walk their pets at least three times a day, under a new law from the city's council.
Glad I do not live in Turin! :)
4/25/2005: Read the article (CNN)
p.s. Also, I also don't have a dog ;). But anyway, I thought that the news was interesting.
This is really interesting!
A house burglar in the U.K. was caught after a webcam on the owner's computer recorded images of him carrying out the raid. [news clip]
A home computer has been given the credit for putting a 19-year-old serial burglar behind bars.Stills of serial raider Benjamin Park, 19, of Cambridge, were sent to an email address so even when he stole the computer, the images could be found.
And here is a comment from the police:
"It was a pleasure to show him the pictures and see his expression when we interviewed him."
What is amazing about the incident is that the computer emailed the images even as it was being stolen!
_________
Images Courtesy: BBC
If you have not watched it already, go ahead and watch it. The story is definitely "fascinating, amusing and unnerving". Have a look.
- http://www.robinsloan.com/epic/
- Pick a random mirror
"In the year 2014,The New York Times has gone offline. The Fourth Estate's fortunes have waned. What happened to the news? And what is EPIC?"
The 'Evolving Personalized Information Construct' (EPIC) is a look at how the media industry might be like in 2014. It is an 8 minute flash presentation by the Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson.
It also talks about GoogleZon (the alliance of Google and Amazon in 2008) and the Google Grid.
Related Links:
- News.com article
While sitting at your desk, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles.
Now, while doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with your right hand.
Your foot will change direction and there's nothing you can do about it!
-----
I tried it and it works!
Source: UTK-CS Friday Memo (10/15/2004)
I was reading an article from Wired and I came across a sentence which mentioned that chewing gum is banned in Singapore. I was really surprised to know about this.
I then googled a bit and found out that this is actually true. In Singapore, the import, sale and possession of chewing gum is banned! [link]
Searched a bit more, and it seems that in 2002, the ban was partially lifted to allow sale of sugarless chewing gum for medical purposes.
"The import, manufacture and sale of chewing gum has been banned in Singapore since 1992, and the penalty for smuggling gum into the country is a year in jail, and a 10,000 Singapore dollar- ($5,500-) fine."
Wierd, Huh?
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae.
The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm.
Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
Amzanig huh? :)
